The German-Japanese violin player Midori Seiler and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin perform Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (Italian: Le quattro stagioni). A choreographed interpretation conducted by Clemens-Maria Nuszbaumer and directed by Juan Kruz Díaz Esnaola. Broadcast by ARTE HD.
Programme (with starting times)
- Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, “La primavera” (Spring) 00:00
- Allegro
- Largo e pianissimo sempre
- Allegro pastorale
- Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 8, RV 315, “L’estate” (Summer) 10:48
- Allegro non molto
- Adagio e piano – Presto e forte
- Presto
- Concerto No. 3 in F major, Op. 8, RV 293, “L’autunno” (Autumn) 21:33
- Allegro
- Adagio molto
- Allegro
- Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, “L’inverno” (Winter) 33:28
- Allegro non molto
- Largo
- Allegro
The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a set of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Composed around 1720, The Four Seasons is Vivaldi’s best-known work, and is among the most popular pieces in the Baroque music repertoire.
Related: Vivaldi – Four Seasons (I Musici)
Midori Seiler
The German-Japanese violin player, Midori Seiler, is the daughter of a Japanese pianist mother and a Bavarian pianist father, who grew up in Salzburg, Austria. Her musical training took her from Salzburg to Basel, London, and Berlin. Her teachers were Helmut Zehetmair, Sandor Végh, Adelina Oprean, David Takeno, Eberhard Feltz and Stephan Mai.
Since 2000, Midori Seiler is concertmistress of the orchestras Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Anima Eterna and was invited as guest concertmaster at various groups, such as Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. As soloist in Europe, South America, Asia, and the USA, she performed violin concerti by J.S. Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Mozart and Beethoven.
From 2010, Seiler has served as professor of Baroque violin and viola at the Liszt School of Music in Weimar. Among her most important recordings is the highly acclaimed 2011 Berlin Classics CD of the Bach Partitas for violin solo, No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, short name: Akamus) is a German chamber orchestra founded in East Berlin in 1982. Each year Akamus gives circa 100 concerts, ranging from small chamber works to large-scale symphonic pieces in Europe’s musical centers as well as on tours in Asia, North America, and South America.
About 30 musicians form the core of the orchestra. They perform under the leadership of their four concertmasters Midori Seiler, Stephan Mai, Bernhard Forck, and Georg Kallweit, or guest conductors like René Jacobs, Marcus Creed, Daniel Reuss, Peter Dijkstra, and Hans-Christoph Rademann.
Recording exclusively for harmonia mundi France since 1994, the ensemble’s CDs have earned many international prizes, including the Grammy Award, the Diapason d’Or, the Cannes Classical Award, the Gramophone Award and the Edison Award. In 2011 the recording of Mozarts Magic Flute was honoured with the German Record Critics’ Award. In 2006 the Recorder Concertos by G. Ph. Telemann with Maurice Steger (CD HMF) have received a number of the most important international awards.
Ever since the reopening of the Berlin Konzerthaus in 1984, the ensemble has its own concert series in Germany’s capital. Furthermore it has regularly been guest at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Philharmonie Berlin, De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and the Carnegie Hall New York. The ensemble works regularly with the RIAS Kammerchor as well as with soloists like Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, Sandrine Piau, and Bejun Mehta. Moreover, Akamus has extended its artistic boundaries to work together with the modern dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests for productions of Dido and Aeneas (music: Henry Purcell) and Medea (music: Pascal Dusapin).
Sources
- Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on Wikipedia
- Midori Seiler on Bach-Cantatas.com
- Midori Seiler on allmusic.com
- Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin on Wikipedia
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